Small Business Bookkeeping: A Beginners Guide

The dollar amount of assets on the left side of the equation must equal the sum of liabilities and equity on the right side of the equation. Below are some of the most common accounting equations that businesses should know. Bookkeeping is the recording phase while accounting is concerned with the summarizing phase of an accounting system.

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What does a bookkeeper do?

Bookkeeping is how businesses, entrepreneurs, and decision-makers monitor a company’s overall financial health and activity. Without basic bookkeeping practices, it’s easy for financial transactions and spending activities to get out of control, which can lead to confusion, disorganization, and loss of profit. To set up a budget, you’ll need to gather your financial data, such as income statements, balance sheets, Top 5 Legal Accounting Software for Modern Law Firms and cash flow statements. This will give you a clear picture of your business’s past financial performance and help you make realistic projections for the future. Accrual accounting provides a more accurate picture of a business’s financial health, as it considers all of the financial transactions for a given period. This accounting method is useful for businesses with inventory or accounts payable and receivable.

• Assets also include fixed assets which are generally the plant, equipment, and land.
• To make things easier, many companies opt to use bookkeeping software to keep track of their financial history.
• Online bookkeeping services might be the exact solution you need to save both time and money.
• For instance, one of the items under the expense account is salary or payroll expenses.

Your bookkeeper might also prepare other auxiliary reports for your business, like accounts payable and accounts receivable aging reports. You can use these to make business decisions, but they should not be presented as audited, certified or official financial statements. Only an accountant licensed to do so can prepare certified financial statements for lenders, buyers and investors. However, your bookkeeper can generate internal management reports for your business. Often, office management tasks like customer billing, paying vendors and payroll are considered to be bookkeeping tasks.

Keep up-to-date records

Very small businesses may choose a simple bookkeeping system that records each financial transaction in much the same manner as a checkbook. Businesses that have more complex financial transactions usually choose to use the double-entry accounting process. QuickBooks Live connects bookkeepers with small businesses that need help doing their books.

The goal of both reports is to be easy to comprehend so that all readers can grasp how well the business is doing. Accounting is the umbrella term for all processes related to recording a business’s financial transactions, whereas bookkeeping is an integral part of the accounting process. A bookkeeper is primarily responsible to record and track a company’s financial transactions which include, purchases, sales and expenses.

Keep your general ledger current

For instance, one of the items under the expense account is salary or payroll expenses. Revenue refers to all the income that comes into the business after selling products and services. By learning bookkeeping basics—with the help of bookkeeping courses—you can keep your business on track and set yourself up for success. Without them, it’s nearly impossible to make informed decisions about your business’s financial health.

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